scholarly journals Long-term memory of relative reward values

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 20160853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Soldati ◽  
Oliver H. P. Burman ◽  
Elizabeth A. John ◽  
Thomas W. Pike ◽  
Anna Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cues ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Key Resources

Long-term memory can be adaptive as it allows animals to retain information that is crucial for survival, such as the appearance and location of key resources. This is generally examined by comparing choices of stimuli that have value to the animal with those that do not; however, in nature choices are rarely so clear cut. Animals are able to assess the relative value of a resource via direct comparison, but it remains unclear whether they are able to retain this information for a biologically meaningful amount of time. To test this, captive red-footed tortoises ( Chelonoidis carbonaria ) were first trained to associate visual cues with specific qualities and quantities of food, and their preferences for the different reward values determined. They were then retested after an interval of 18 months. We found that the tortoises were able to retain the information they had learned about the cues as indicators of relative reward values over this interval, demonstrating a memory for the relative quantity and quality of food over an extended period of time. This is likely to impact directly on an animal's foraging decisions, such as the exploitation of seasonally varying resources, with obvious fitness implications for the individual; however, the implications may also extend to the ecological interactions in which the animal is involved, affecting processes such as herbivory and seed dispersal.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Two Variations and One Similarity in Memory Functions Deployed by Mice and Humans to Support Foraging

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110105
Author(s):  
Spencer Talbot ◽  
Todor Gerdjikov ◽  
Carlo De Lillo
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Foraging Efficiency ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Functions ◽  
Term Memory

Assessing variations in cognitive function between humans and animals is vital for understanding the idiosyncrasies of human cognition and for refining animal models of human brain function and disease. We determined memory functions deployed by mice and humans to support foraging with a search task acting as a test battery. Mice searched for food from the top of poles within an open-arena. Poles were divided into groups based on visual cues and baited according to different schedules. White and black poles were baited in alternate trials. Striped poles were never baited. The requirement of the task was to find all baits in each trial. Mice’s foraging efficiency, defined as the number of poles visited before all baits were retrieved, improved with practice. Mice learnt to avoid visiting un-baited poles across trials (Long-term memory) and revisits to poles within each trial (Working memory). Humans tested with a virtual-reality version of the task outperformed mice in foraging efficiency, working memory and exploitation of the temporal pattern of rewards across trials. Moreover, humans, but not mice, reduced the number of possible movement sequences used to search the set of poles. For these measures interspecies differences were maintained throughout three weeks of testing. By contrast, long-term-memory for never-rewarded poles was similar in mice and humans after the first week of testing. These results indicate that human cognitive functions relying upon archaic brain structures may be adequately modelled in mice. Conversely, modelling in mice fluid skills likely to have developed specifically in primates, requires caution.

scholarly journals Cognitive profile of patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-547
Author(s):  
Vanessa Brzoskowski dos Santos ◽  
Jonas Alex Morales Saute ◽  
Laís Alves Jacinto-Scudeiro ◽  
Annelise Ayres ◽  
Rafaela Soares Rech ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Muscular Dystrophy ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy ◽  
Cognitive Profile ◽  
Life Assessment ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory

ABSTRACT Although it is predominantly a muscular disease, impairments in the central nervous system in patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) have been described in the literature. Objective: To describe the cognitive profile of patients with FSHD and to correlate the impairments found with clinical variables and quality of life. Methods: Cross-sectional and case–control study that evaluated FSHD patients using a series of cognitive assessments (Mini-Mental State Examination — MMSE, Montreal Cognitive Assessment — MoCA, verbal fluency with phonological restriction — FAS, categorical verbal fluency — FAS-cat, trail-making test — TMT, and Rey’s Verbal Auditory Learning Test); a neurological severity scale (Gardner–Medwin–Walton — GMWS); and a quality of life measurement tool (Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey). Results: Individuals with FSHD (13) and healthy controls (26) were paired by gender and age. Significant differences between case and control groups were found in MMSE, TMT A, and A7 (p≤0.05) and MOCA (p≤0.001) performances. A positive correlation was verified in long-term memory impairments and the age in which symptoms appear (r=-0.593, p=0.033). Regarding quality of life assessment, the emotional domain correlated to MEEM (r=0.657, p=0.015), TMT A (r=-0.601, p=0.030), and A7 (r=0.617, p=0.025) performances. Conclusions: Individuals with FSHD presented mild impairments in the performance of tasks that involve attention, planning, and long-term memory functions. Those impairments were associated neither with the disease duration nor with its neurological severity.

Impact of Voice Pitch on Text Memory

2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hede Helfrich ◽  
Philipp Weidenbecher
Keyword(s):  
Linear Correlation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Learning Material ◽  
Voice Pitch ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Text Memory ◽  
Original Speech ◽  
Stimulus Materials

Previous research on communication has demonstrated that the quality of a speaker’s voice affects the attitude of the audience toward the speaker. The present study aimed to find out whether the pitch of a speaker’s voice affects the listener’s memory for the contents of the texts read. Stimulus materials consisted of three different texts spoken by different male speakers in different average pitches (measured as F0 in Hz). The original speech samples were digitally manipulated to produce predefined pitches. Both original and manipulated texts were then presented to participants as learning material. The results indicate a linear correlation between pitch and speaker rating in so far as low-pitched voices were rated more positively than high-pitched voices. Concerning the retention of content, it was shown that, in long-term memory, both high- and low-pitched voices led to better results than medium-pitched voices. This result was independent of whether the speech samples represented natural or manipulated voices.

scholarly journals Mental Mechanisms for Topics Identification

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Louis Massey
Keyword(s):  
Baseline Level ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Decay Rates ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Term Memory

Topics identification (TI) is the process that consists in determining the main themes present in natural language documents. The current TI modeling paradigm aims at acquiring semantic information from statistic properties of large text datasets. We investigate the mental mechanisms responsible for the identification of topics in a single document given existing knowledge. Our main hypothesis is that topics are the result of accumulated neural activation of loosely organized information stored in long-term memory (LTM). We experimentally tested our hypothesis with a computational model that simulates LTM activation. The model assumes activation decay as an unavoidable phenomenon originating from the bioelectric nature of neural systems. Since decay should negatively affect the quality of topics, the model predicts the presence of short-term memory (STM) to keep the focus of attention on a few words, with the expected outcome of restoring quality to a baseline level. Our experiments measured topics quality of over 300 documents with various decay rates and STM capacity. Our results showed that accumulated activation of loosely organized information was an effective mental computational commodity to identify topics. It was furthermore confirmed that rapid decay is detrimental to topics quality but that limited capacity STM restores quality to a baseline level, even exceeding it slightly.

scholarly journals Similar Profile and Magnitude of Cognitive Impairments in Focal and Generalized Epilepsy: A Pilot Study

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Gauffin ◽  
Anne-Marie Landtblom ◽  
Patrick Vigren ◽  
Andreas Frick ◽  
Maria Engström ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Focal Epilepsy ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Generalized Epilepsy

Introduction: Cognitive impairments in epilepsy are not well-understood. In addition, long-term emotional, interpersonal, and social consequences of the underlying disturbances are important to evaluate.Purpose: To compare cognitive function including language in young adults with focal or generalized epilepsy. In addition, quality of life and self-esteem were investigated.Patients and Methods: Young adults with no primary intellectual disability, 17 with focal epilepsy and 11 with generalized epilepsy participated and were compared to 28 healthy controls. Groups were matched on age (mean = 26 years), sex, and education. Participants were administered a battery of neuropsychological tasks and carried out self-ratings of quality of life, self-esteem, and psychological problems.Results: Similar impairments regarding cognitive function were noted in focal and generalized epilepsy. The cognitive domains tested were episodic long-term memory, executive functions, attention, working memory, visuospatial functions, and language. Both epilepsy groups had lower results compared to controls (effect sizes 0.24–1.07). The total number of convulsive seizures was predictive of episodic long-term memory function. Participants with focal epilepsy reported lower quality of life than participants with generalized epilepsy. Lowered self-esteem values were seen in both epilepsy groups and particularly in those with focal epilepsy. Along with measures of cognitive speed and depression, the total number of seizures explained more than 50% of variation in quality of life.Conclusion: Interestingly, similarities rather than differences characterized the widespread cognitive deficits that were seen in focal and generalized epilepsy, ranging from mild to moderate. These similarities were modified by quality of life and self-esteem. This study confirms the notion that epilepsy is a network disorder.

scholarly journals Organization and priming of long-term memory representations with two-phase plasticity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannik Luboeinski ◽  
Christian Tetzlaff
Keyword(s):  
Order Effect ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Spontaneous Activation ◽  
Synaptic Tagging And Capture ◽  
The Individual

AbstractSynaptic tagging and capture (STC) is a molecular mechanism that accounts for the consolidation of synaptic changes induced by plasticity. To link this mechanism to long-term memory and thereby to the level of behavior, its dynamics on the level of recurrent networks have to be understood. To this end, we employ a biologically detailed neural network model of spiking neurons featuring STC, which models the learning and consolidation of long-term memory representations. Using this model, we investigate the effects of different organizational paradigms of multiple memory representations, and demonstrate a proof of principle for priming on long timescales. We examine these effects considering the spontaneous activation of memory representations as the network is driven by background noise. Our first finding is that the order in which the memory representations are learned significantly biases the likelihood of spontaneous activation towards more recently learned memory representations. Secondly, we find that hub-like structures counter this learning order effect for representations with less overlaps. We show that long-term depression is the mechanism underlying these findings, and that intermediate consolidation in between learning the individual representations strongly alters the described effects. Finally, we employ STC to demonstrate the priming of a long-term memory representation on a timescale of minutes to hours. As shown by these findings, our model provides a mechanistic synaptic and neuronal basis for known behavioral effects.

Information Processing and Human Memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Eggen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Learning ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Sensory Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Individual

Information processing is a cognitive learning theory that helps explain how individuals acquire, process, store, and retrieve information from memory. The cognitive architecture that facilitates the processing of information consists of three components: memory stores, cognitive processes, and metacognition. The memory stores are sensory memory, a virtually unlimited store that briefly holds stimuli from the environment in an unprocessed form until processing begins; working memory, the conscious component of our information processing system, limited in both capacity and duration, where knowledge is organized and constructed in a form that makes sense to the individual; and long-term memory, a vast and durable store that holds an individual’s lifetime of acquired information. Information is moved from sensory memory to working memory using the cognitive processes attention, selectively focusing on a single stimulus, and perception, the process of attaching meaning to stimuli. After information is organized in working memory so it makes sense to the individual, it is represented in long-term memory through the process of encoding, where it can later be retrieved and connected to new information from the environment. Metacognition is a regulatory mechanism that facilitates the use of strategies, such as chunking, automaticity, and distributed processing, that help accommodate the limitations of working memory, and schema activation, organization, elaboration, and imagery that promote the efficient encoding of information into long-term memory. Information processing theory has implications for our daily living ranging from tasks as simple as shopping at a supermarket to those as sophisticated as solving complex problems.

scholarly journals Tracing the path of forgetting in rule abstraction and exemplar retrieval

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (11) ◽  
pp. 2261-2281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janina A Hoffmann ◽  
Bettina von Helversen ◽  
Regina A Weilbächer ◽  
Jörg Rieskamp
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Initial Learning ◽  
Rule Abstraction ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

People often forget acquired knowledge over time such as names of former classmates. Which knowledge people can access, however, may modify the judgement process and affect judgement accuracy. Specifically, we hypothesised that judgements based on retrieving past exemplars from long-term memory may be more vulnerable to forgetting than remembering rules that relate the cues to the criterion. Experiment 1 systematically tracked the individual course of forgetting from initial learning to later tests (immediate, 1 day, and 1 week) in a linear judgement task facilitating rule-based strategies and a multiplicative judgement task facilitating exemplar-based strategies. Practising the acquired judgement strategy in repeated tests helped participants to consistently apply the learnt judgement strategy and retain a high judgement accuracy even after a week. Yet, whereas a long retention interval did not affect judgements in the linear task, a long retention interval impaired judgements in the multiplicative task. If practice was restricted as in Experiment 2, judgement accuracy suffered in both tasks. In addition, after a week without practice, participants tried to reconstruct their judgements by applying rules in the multiplicative task. These results emphasise that the extent to which decision makers can still retrieve previously learned knowledge limits their ability to make accurate judgements and that the preferred strategies change over time if the opportunity for practice is limited.

Age Differences in Organization and Recall: An Analysis of Rehearsal Processes

1982 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 919-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. K. Jackson ◽  
H. G. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Age Differences ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Rehearsal Strategies ◽  
Effect Of Age

Organizational processing and free recall in younger (mean age = 18.0 yr.) and older (mean age = 71.9 yr.) adults were examined in an overt rehearsal procedure monitoring spontaneous rehearsal strategies. Subjects learned one of two equivalent lists of 18 unrelated nouns. Although a significant interaction of age × list was obtained in total recall, significant age differences in recall from long-term memory were associated with quality of rehearsal. No significant effect of age emerged in subjective organization or frequency of item rehearsal. Younger adults, recalling more, tended to rehearse in an active fashion by rehearsing the currently displayed item with several others. Results provide direct evidence that the elderly may suffer from a decrement in organizational processing in long-term memory with unstructured material, possibly stemming more from acquisition than retrieval-related mechanisms.

scholarly journals Long-term memory of individual identity in ant queens

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 459-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Dreier ◽  
Jelle S van Zweden ◽  
Patrizia D'Ettorre
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Individual Recognition ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cost ◽  
First Time

Remembering individual identities is part of our own everyday social life. Surprisingly, this ability has recently been shown in two social insects. While paper wasps recognize each other individually through their facial markings, the ant, Pachycondyla villosa , uses chemical cues. In both species, individual recognition is adaptive since it facilitates the maintenance of stable dominance hierarchies among individuals, and thus reduces the cost of conflict within these small societies. Here, we investigated individual recognition in Pachycondyla ants by quantifying the level of aggression between pairs of familiar or unfamiliar queens over time. We show that unrelated founding queens of P. villosa and Pachycondyla inversa store information on the individual identity of other queens and can retrieve it from memory after 24 h of separation. Thus, we have documented for the first time that long-term memory of individual identity is present and functional in ants. This novel finding represents an advance in our understanding of the mechanism determining the evolution of cooperation among unrelated individuals.

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